Railway Reform: Toolkit for Improving Rail Sector Performance - ppiaf

Railway Reform: Toolkit for Improving Rail Sector Performance
Case Study: Indian Railways
cent. India has a mix of passenger services. Over the last thirty years, as cities
have expanded, suburban passenger journey length has increased from an average
of about 20 kms/trip to 36 kms/trip, and average journey lengths for intercity
services increased from about 87 kms/trip to 230 kms/trip. In terms of modal
share, IR is estimated to carry about 15 percent of non urban passenger traffic.
At the present phase of development, India’s economy generates large volumes of
freight types that are well-suited to railway transport and carried for relatively
long distances. In 2008, coal comprised an estimated 40 percent of rail freight
ton-km, followed by iron ore with 9.5 percent, cement, 8.8 percent, and grains,
8.3 percent. Rapidly growing container traffic now constitutes nearly 7.0 percent
of traffic task. The average freight haulage length is nearly 660 kms, and IR carries
an estimated one-third of national inland freight task.
If the MOR (IRB) regularly monitors customer perceptions of its services, it does
not publish them, but it does carry out ad hoc consumer research. Vision 2020
suggests many areas for improvement—a new “look and feel” for passenger services
that need to become… “fast, punctual, clean”. The MOR (IRB) acknowledges
deficiencies in meeting passenger demand, including long waits to buy tickets. As
a result, MOR (IRB) has adopted a Citizen’s Charter as part of service performance
standards. So far, no performance measurements against those standards
have been published. Vision 2020 also sees a need to “…reinvent freight services”
by “…creating adequate carrying capacity, achieving cost effectiveness, improving
quality of service and providing new value-adding services.”
2.4 Transport Operations
Trends in operational indices are summarized in Figure 4; most resource utilization
indicators show significant improvement. Over the last two decades, passenger
train speeds have increased by 27 percent and passenger loadings per railcar
by 88 percent. Freight train weight has increased by 61 percent and output per
freight locomotive has increased by about one-third.
In 2001, the Mohan Report criticized IR’s transport operations, citing an outdated
business structure, inefficiency and low productivity, low-quality overpriced
rail freight services, lack of customer focus in freight and passenger services,
and a serious infrastructure maintenance and renewal backlog. At that time,
the system was run down and floundering under huge arrears of renewals and
replacements, high asset failure rates, and a poor and deteriorating financial operating
ratio. Yet by 2008, IR had eliminated maintenance deferrals, paid back
Government for deferred dividends, replenished its depreciation reserves, and
earned record surpluses.
The World Bank Page 356